Thursday, December 29, 2016

The Gadfly has bent over backwards over the past several years in an attempt to find any redeeming human qualities in the most rabid of the right wing conservative Americans. It has been a fruitless effort and The Gadfly's unabashed point of view on the matter is that these hard core conservatives are just simply fucking monsters. Case in point :

By TIERNEY SNEED Published DECEMBER 19, 2016, 3:30 PM EDT

A Republican congressman outlined the way he would like to see the health care system operate if Obamacare is repealed, as GOP lawmakers are promising. It is a brave new world in which parents would wait and think about it before bringing in their sick or injured kids for costly treatments.

The example Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-MI) gave in an interview with MLive.com was from his own experience when he waited until the morning after to take his youngest son to the doctor with an injured arm, because he did not want to waste money on an expensive emergency room visit. The arm, it turned out, was broken.

"We weren't sure what was going on. It was in the evening, so I splinted it up and we wrapped it up, and the decision was, okay, do we go to the ER? We thought it was a sprain, but weren't sure," Huizenga said, adding that he and his wife "took every precaution and decided to go in the next morning."

"When it [comes to] those type of things, do you keep your child home from school and take him the next morning to the doctor because of a cold or a flu, versus take him into the emergency room? If you don't have a cost difference, you'll make different decisions," he said.

Yeah you nanny-state mooching parents! -- next time your little Jenny has a head injury after falling off her bike or your little Johnny get's kicked in the chest by the petting zoo pony or little Billy Bob has a 104 degree temperature and has blood oozing out of his eyeballs, and you are thinking of taking them to the emergency room to have them checked out -- you best make damn sure that you first think deep and hard about that "cost difference" --- you know --- the difference between caring about your kid possibly having a life threatening injury or illness and what the cost of that emergency room visit might be to those poor beleaguered health insurance companies.

If The Gadfly had any say in the matter, this creep Republican congressman Huizenga would be on the receiving end of a visit from his state's child protection services workers. What kind of parent is he that would allow his child to suffer a full night with a fractured arm just because his fucked up political views and way of looking at the world necessitate that he, above all other considerations, ponder the possible costs to the already obscenely profitable insurance companies for an emergency room visit? What is so devastatingly wrong with these conservative's brains and souls that compel them to be so fucking heartless?

Frankly dear readers - The Gadfly has reached the end of his rope and just completely had it with these hateful bastards. HAD IT! HAD IT!! HAD IT!!! There truly is no hope for them. There just isn't.

Of course, in a truly humane and decent society, access to health care would indeed be a human right and not a goddamn purchasable product like a TV set or a smart phone. And that's the problem -- America is not a humane and decent society - hasn't been for some time. Oh sure - we had good intentions and were making progress toward a better society for all, but then along came the modern day conservative movement who have invested all of their hatred and bitterness and selfishness in to ensuring that this nation and society never reach that noble plateau of gracious humanity.

And now, with the ascension to power of someone who fanatically worships at the altar of the almighty dollar and who looks at human lives and sees nothing more than business assets and numbers on a spreadsheet or expendable commodities, we are going to have an administration led by someone who is deeply loyal to (The Gadfly would argue he is actually one of them) the oligarchs who have long openly stated their intentions of destroying social security, medicare, pensions and any other social safety-net program that helps the most vulnerable American citizens enhance the quality of their lives.

George Carlin was right -- they are coming for it all - they want every cent of that FDR New Deal money back. And with blitzkrieg like actions, it won't take them very long to reverse 100 years of life affirming social progress in this country.

The Gadfly sure hopes that all of these unthinking dumb asses who blindly supported Drumpf are ready to financially support mom and dad in their retirement, along with grandpa and grandma too, and to make room for them to live in their basements once SS and medicare have been turned over to the wolves on Wall Street - because that will be the net effect once Drumpf and the Gang complete their gleeful, blood lusting bull rampage through the social services china shop.

Sunday, December 18, 2016

More people having access to health care is the cause of lower life expectancy? Well imagine that!:

Only on Fox News would the finding that Americans’ life expectancy has fallen cause a host to speculate that maybe Americans are getting too much health care. But that’s exactly what Fox & Friends host Ainsley Earhardt was suggesting when she “just asked” if “government health care” was the cause of the drop.

On Tuesday, Earhardt introduced a discussion on the subject as a banner read: “WAS IT WORTH IT? BILLIONS SPENT ON ACA, LIFE EXPECTANCY DROPS.”

EARHARDT: It is a startling statistic about health in America. Life expectancy is now down for the first time in more than two decades. We’re not living as long. But, as the life expectancy drops, government health care rises. Are they related?

And The Gadfly has no doubts whatsoever that the Fox/Tea Party/Drumpf viewers will all nod their heads in zombie-like, obedient agreement -- because if it's on Fox "News" it must be true - dontcha know?

Is it any wonder then that this country has elevated to power a megalomaniac, a serial lying, amoral, bigoted fascist with the temperament of an attention-starved toddler, whose role model for strong leadership, by his own admission, is the authoritarian thug and former head of the communist Russia's KGB?

As such it stands to reason (a foreign word these days to American conservatives) that when you have a large portion of your populace who would unblinkingly believe that expanded health care results in lessened life spans, then that is a populace that is ripe to believe just about anything, and riper yet to be manipulated in to supporting leaders who only seek to gain power for themselves and their elitist kind -- power which will most certainly come at the expense of the majority of everyone else - including those who foolishly and recklessly put those leaders in power.

Be that as it may though, how is it exactly that the still sane Americans are to go about trying to reason with people like this:

?????

Martin Luther King Jr. once said:

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."

But it's not enough that these Drumpf supporting people are "sincere" and "conscientious" about their ignorance and stupidity -- oh no -- they are actually prideful of it and celebrate it and to compound that horror, they are passing their destructive world views and self-flagellating foolishness on to their offspring -- as if it were the equivalent of a family inheritance.

This country is so fucked - and yet it probably is much deserved and long overdue. The aggregate embracement of narrow-minded arrogance, unbridled hubris and the wholesale abandonment of reason, truth, justice and human decency is the consummate malady that has afflicted failed empires throughout human history, and America, solely by virtue of it being America, is clearly not immune to such a self-immolating societal illness.

Sigh . . . . The Gadfly ponders daily George Carlin's observations on what he believed was destined to happen to America and with the ascension of Drumpf and his gang to power, the truthfulness of Carlin's conclusions are becoming frighteningly more apparent every day:

Saturday, December 10, 2016

US intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia interfered in last month’s presidential election to boost Donald Trump’s bid for the White House, according to reports.

A secret CIA assessment found that Russian operatives covertly interfered in the election campaign in an attempt to ensure the Republican candidate’s victory, the Washington Post reported, citing officials briefed on the matter.

A separate report in the New York Times said intelligence officials had a “high confidence” that Russia was involved in hacking related to the election.

The Gadfly is going to say this once, and only once to his Drumpf supporting friends and family members. If the sending and receiving of emails on a private server, something which prior GOP high-level government officials have done but never were investigated for, was grounds for Drumpf and his followers to demand Clinton's prosecution and imprisonment, then you also must demand that an investigation begin immediately to determine if the U.S. intelligence community's claims of communist Russia's interference in our electoral process in order to enhance Drumpf's prospects for victory are grounded in any semblance of truth.

While it would be easy and correct to rail against the Russians for meddling with the foundation of our democratic society, our open and free electoral process, that really should come as no surprise considering Russia has always been considered an untrustworthy adversary if not outright enemy to America and our representative democracy.

That be said, The Gadfly lays much of the blame for this sordid state of affairs squarely at the feet of the right wing, Tea Party noodle-heads and other Drumpf acolytes who actually were and still are of the belief that a serial lying, bigoted, narcissistic, amoral, tax-dodging, unethical con-artist swindler like Drumpf, a man who has never done anything for anyone other than his self and the few equally corrupt, billionaire plutocrats that he associates with, was the very best man for the job of leader of the free world and champion of democracy - Fucking Idiots - every one of you - including you Bernie Sanders supporters who's equally irrational hatred of Mrs. Clinton drove you to cast a ballot for the short-fingered, vulgarian plutocrat.

Oh - and lest it be understated - Drumpf's Russian connections are no secret - it's well known for those who bother to do a little research that Drumpf's, and others whom he associates with, financial ties to the Russian oligarchs and by proxy their puppet Putin, are deep and exactly how deep is unknown since Drumpf has steadfastly refused to release any of his tax records. And while The Gadfly continues to maintain a guarded wariness of our own country's intelligence community's trustworthiness, it most certainly cannot be claimed that they are doing the bidding of the dirty fucking hippie liberals in issuing this report, evidence free conspiracy mongering notwithstanding.

The American people need and deserve to know the truth about the extent of Russia's actions in ratfucking our elections and even more so if people close to, up to and including Mr. Drumpf his self, were complicit in any way, shape or form. Investigate this now - delay Drumpf's coronation if necessary - investigate it thoroughly, and let the truth see the light of day.

Richards is accused of telling the parent “you gonna die, death is coming to you real soon," according to federal court documents. The statements were made in January. She also wrote, "Look behind you it's death," according to the documents.

No - the saddest part here is that line stating that the man who lost his child in that ghastly and heart-breaking incident in Newtown Connecticut four years ago, Len Pozner said that he was "comforted to know that the system is working to protect the victims of violent crime from re-victimization by potentially violent Hoaxers."

If this country had any moral courage or moral sensibilities or any cognitive thinking sensibilities whatsoever at this awful and frightening time in it's short history, there would be absolutely no fucking need whatsoever for Mr. Pozner to have to rest hope on the premise that a "system" had to even exist at all and that was needed to keep him from being harmed by these fucking idiotic nutbags.

And of course - add in the horror of knowing now that the conspiracy theory mongering president-elect and his paranoid-schizophrenic alt-right minions are in control of the levers of power, and by virtue of such have unleashed their dogs of sociopathic ignorance and stupidity upon us all, The Gadfly feels that all bets are off for this amazing experiment in representative democracy ending up in any good place at all in the near term future.

Ahh yes -- the ol' presidential victory tour -- because which winning U.S. president hasn't indulged in that grandest of all grand and American traditions - touring around the country, feting your supporters and gloating over the vanquished remains of your political opponents?

Actually -- none have. But Drumpf is a narcissist beast of an entirely different nature.

It is classic fascism in it's purest form. And it is also no coincidence that the same day the "victory" tour was announced, dear leader was flapping his Mussoliniesque pie-hole on his beautiful Twitter account about how the act of flag burning, an ugly, but constitutionally guaranteed 1st amendment right, should result in the imprisonment and/or revocation of citizenship of the perpetrators.

To which The Gadfly would reply:

First they came for the Muslims, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Muslim.

Then they came for the rest of the immigrants, and I did not speak out— Because I was not an immigrant.

Then they came for the flag burners and anyone who dared to openly criticize their leader and their regime, and I did not speak out — Because I was not one of those - yet.

Drumpf and his cult-like army of goose-steppers have also made threats against the press. Now lord knows The Gadfly holds no deep affection for the craven media in this country - but that blame can be laid almost directly at the feet of the corporotocracy headed up by moguls like Rupert Murdoch and other uber wealthy oligarchs of his ilk who control most of the media content Americans see and hear and are more concerned with making a profit than they are in presenting truthful, unbiased news to the American citizenry.

Both of those actions - threatening to jail political opponents and threatening the press just also happen to be hallmark traits of fascist, authoritarian regimes.

It can't happen here you think? The literal incarnation of Buzz Windrip is most definitely in our midst dear readers - and nothing short of unified vigilance and resistance stands between his depressing, life dispiriting vision of America and the America which would be a beacon of hope of freedom and democracy to all repressed peoples of the world.

And for the skeptics who believe The Gadfly is being too melodramatic here - Fuck you. It was the same type of apathy and listlessness in citizens like you who allowed the ascension of dictators like Hitler and Mussolini in the 1930's in to power, thus bringing on the horror and human carnage of WW2.

Drumpf, based on his unhinged behavior and the inflammatory statements he has made to date, needs to be held rigidly accountable to the United States constitution and the American ideals that made this nation great. And if the handful of sane Republicans and Democrats and the gutless media are not up to that task, then it is the solemn duty of true patriotic Americans to step up to the podium and make their voices heard loud and clear.

Oh -- and btw -- The Gadfly does not believe it to be an unreasonable stretch of the imagination in thinking that Drumpf, in his own mind, envisions his victory tour resembling something like this:

Monday, November 28, 2016

President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday made the astonishing claim that “millions of people who voted illegally” contributed to opponent Hillary Clinton’s victory in the popular vote, following a campaign based largely on spreading conspiracy theories and claiming that the election was “rigged” against him.

This is the unstable mind of a psychopath working here dear readers. And no - that is not an observation based on partisan politics or political sour grapes.

Like it or not, Drumpf won the electoral college portion of the election by all existent accounts. And even though it appears that as the final nationwide vote tabulation nears completion, Hillary Clinton will end up with 3 million or more American citizen's votes than Drumpf, the electoral college, for good or bad, has already determined the outcome.

And therein lies the rub. Drumpf is so much of a delusional, viperous narcissist that it just simply must drive him over-the-cliff mad (more than he already is) knowing that millions of more Americans chose HRC over him as their choice for leader of the free world.

Drumpf began the burnishing of his ill-gotten victory almost immediately in the tumultuous wake of this hideous election. Just last week in an interview with 60 Minutes he was asked about his intended follow through on the threatening campaign promises to "lock up" "crooked Hillary" now that he was President-elect. Drumpf smugly stated, "I don't want to hurt them," which Josh Marshall at the blog Talking Points Memo rightly observed:

The personal desires of the President, his mercy, is irrelevant to this kind of decision. Either there is something to investigate or there's not - and a lengthy investigation that came up with nothing to prosecute suggests there isn't anything. This isn't the Colosseum where everyone waits on the Emperor's thumbs up or down. America is not a place where those who lose elections live freely at the sufferance of the victors. This is certainly better than Trump trying to jail Clinton as he promised, but only so much. What if Hillary Clinton becomes an outspoken critic of President Trump? Does he reconsider? None of this is normal. This is how strongmen talk.

A strongman is a political leader who rules by force and runs an authoritarian regime or totalitarian regime. The term is often used interchangeably with "dictator" in the western world, but differs from a "warlord" and commonly lacks the negative connotations especially in some Eastern European and Central Asian countries. A strongman is not necessarily always a formal head of state or head of government; sometimes journalists use the term to describe a military or political figure who exercises far more influence over the government than a local constitution allows.

The Gadfly is just going to come right out and say it - Donald J. Trump is a mentally disturbed individual and manifestly unfit for high office - and by virtue of such quite frankly - is an unquestionable threat to the American republic, our national security and our democracy.

And the people who supported and continue to support him (by and large the conservative and Tea Party movements) need to be held directly accountable for this awful person's (The Gadfly refuses to refer to Drumpf as a man for obvious reasons) sullied ascension and glorification.

The United States and the rest of this nation's still existing allies in the free world are going to be dragged in to a maelstrom of destructive, wanton geo-political shit if this Napoleon wannabe freak-show is allowed to settle in to power with his sweaty, unhinged tiny hands, and by extension tiny fingers, anywhere near the suitcase with the nuclear codes in it.

Friday, November 11, 2016

Well America - you did it. You threw your tantrum, and you got to pick the lunch money stealing, schoolyard bully as your dear leader. You chose Magneto over Professor Xavier, Voldemort over Harry Potter, Longshanks over William Wallace. Bravo.

The Gadfly knows quite well that what he is about to write will be considered "sour grapes" by the Drumpfanistas, but in fact, it is simple reality based on demonstrable truths and The Gadfly's detractors can go pound sand if they believe otherwise (The Gadfly was going to say "feel otherwise", but he thinks the Drumpf borgs are incapable of the act of human feeling").

Truth be told though, it wasn't wholly unexpected. Michael Moore predicted it a couple of months ago. And for certain there is plenty of blame to ride on the shoulders of the stale Democratic party for Drumpf's sullied victory. The ass backward thinking establishment Democrats chose to stick with the institutional face of politics as usual in Hillary Clinton - in defiance of near apoplectic demands for change from their working class, mostly progressive base. The Democratic party has become a cesspool of dysfunctional party hacks and elitist thumb-suckers who long ago abandoned whatever remaining loyalties they had to the working men and women of this country in favor of the rewards system that comes with being admitted and sponsored members of the Wall Street/oligarch's Washington, D.C. country club.

That being said -- it needs to be noted that there is also plenty of blame left over, aside from the rubes voting to slit their own throats. For instance -- the gutless, craven, profit driven media who for the life of them couldn't get the truth out to the American electorate even though the nation's future depended on it. The media in this country, sadly, is just one Drumpf bullying episode away from being cowed in to mewling worthlessness, at which point they become complicit accomplices to the right's unfluctuating assault on democracy.

But truly - the bulk of blame needs to be assigned to the people who actually willingly pulled the voting lever in favor of Drumpf and his fear mongering and divisiveness and his dark, myopic vision.

By virtue of their vote, they knowingly and willingly approved of Drumpf's messages of hate and class and cultural division, of racism and bigotry and misogyny/sexism.

They voted for a man who bragged openly about sexually assaulting women just because his fame and elitist power status bestowed upon him the privilege to do so.

They voted for a man with a long and well documented track record of business failures - which in and of itself is not a disqualifier, however Drumpf's business failures, almost in every instance, resulted in a substantial financial benefit to him personally while leaving his investors, contractors and workers shortchanged and footing the bills for his failed leadership and decision making.

They voted for a man who currently is being class-action sued for conning a whole lot of (admittedly gullible) people out of their money with his fraudulent Trump "University" scam.

They voted for this supremely obnoxious, ignorant, hateful, vindictive rage-toddler of a man because they say he speaks his mind, and isn't politically correct, and says things that they identify with and that he presents the issues, as they perceive them based on their small world views, as being the truth about the way things are (or should be). Of course, those are some of the same excuses Hitler's minions gave for supporting that monster in the lead up to WW2 and the holocaust.

It is not a matter of "if" there will be a shit-storm that will be brought down upon this country because of our electoral foolishness in putting such a frighteningly unqualified demagogue and authoritarian with delusions of Napoleonic grandeur in charge of the world's greatest democracy, it's frankly just a matter of when and how brutal it is going to be. But when it happens, let us ensure that we keep it in the forefront of our national discussion who the people are that brought this blight upon us.

And finally -- a clear message directly to those of you who voted for Drumpf -- you fucking own him now. You own everything that is going to happen to this country in the next four years as well all of that which will result from his policy and leadership decisions. He's your Frankenstein monster, you all created and nurtured him and there is no way in hell the rest of us are going to let you all weasel your way out of taking responsibility for your thoughtless foolishness when the proverbial shit begins slamming full force in to the proverbial fan blades.

----TFG

**UPDATE: Obviously a case of too little, too late, but several outlets including the Washington Post are reporting that a high ranking Russian diplomat has gone on the record confirming that there were contacts between Drumpf and his team and Russian officials in the run-up to the election (keep in mind - these "officials" would most definitely be in the employ of former KGB agent and now Russian president Vladimir Putin). To which The Gadfly would responsd: Fuck Benghazi! and Hillary's emails. The Gadfly wants to know when the Senate hearings are going to convene to begin the investigation in to this possible act of traitorism! . . . . . . crickets chirping . . . . . . yeah -- that's what The Gadfly thought.

##Addendum: The Gadfly would be remiss if he failed to share the wisdom of the late, great social commentary comedian George Carlin who in one of his final interviews talked about why he gave up caring about the human species and more so his fellow Americans. Carlin talked about this country's steady demise in to the history dust bin of failed societies and he likened it to water circling an open drain. The Gadfly is of the view Drumpf's ascension is the ultimate proof of what Carlin was talking about and signifies the circling around the drain of the American experiment has just gotten faster and narrower.

Monday, November 7, 2016

Beck’s interactions with Donald Trump helped, too. He told a story of Trump summoning him to a guest room at Mar-a-Lago; Trump then telephoned him from an adjacent room. “We had this weird, almost Howard Hughes-like conversation,” Beck said. He left convinced that Trump was nuts. “This guy is dangerously unhinged,” he said. “And, for all the things people have said about me over the years, I should be able to spot Dangerously Unhinged.”

Monday, October 24, 2016

Believe it or not, The Gadfly truly hates wallowing around in the right's political muck. It's mostly senseless, very likely not going to sway Drumpf's base of borg followers to any meaningful extent, and it really detracts from more serious subjects, which if this were a sane country, would be of a much higher priority to talk about and need to be talked about.

But the conservatives and their sexually obsessed puppet pigs in congress started this shit 20 years ago when they impeached Clinton for lying about a blow job. They opened up that can of down and dirty muckraking Pandora's box and as far as The Gadfly is concerned, they deserve to have this Drumpf sexual impropriety crap shoved as far down their throats as it can get and not just shoved down their throats, but rammed down with a an unclean toilet plunger!

And The Gadfly is only all too happy to contribute to that gullet stuffing effort. Observe:

“He was wearing pajamas,” she said, and added that there was a bodyguard in the room. “He asked me about being an adult film star, details about shooting porn, and asked about our personal relationships and whether we were married or single.”

“After I returned to my room, I received a call from a man calling on Donald’s behalf. He said Donald wanted me to come back upstairs to Donald’s suite, and I indicated I did not wish to return. Then Donald called. He asked me to return to his suite and have dinner with him, and he also invited me to a party,” she said.

When she declined his invitation, Drake said Trump asked her, “What do you want? How much?”

“I told him that I couldn’t because I had to return to L.A. for work,” she continued. “After that I received another call from either Donald or a male calling on his behalf, offering me $10,000. I declined again, and once more gave as an excuse that I had to return to Los Angeles for work. I was then told Mr. Trump would allow me the use of his private jet, if only I accepted his invitation.”

Oh lordy -- it honestly is too good to be true. How can The Gadfly ever repay you conservatives for the joy you have provided The Gadfly by your decision to elect the sexually degenerate, geriatric version of Richie Rich as the one who will lead you to the promised land? An incomparable gift indeed.

News of Drumpf's victim #12 broke just as Donny was role-playing in his mind about how he's the next face on Mt. Rushmore by giving a speech at Gettysburg. The bloated oompa-loompa brayed to to his Custer inspired troops:

On Saturday, the Republican nominee promised to sue his accusers after the presidential election is over. “Every woman lied when they came forward to hurt my campaign,” Trump said during a speech in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. “Total fabrication. The events never happened. Never. All of these liars will be sued after the election is over.”

“The picture is one of thousands taken out of respect for people asking to have their picture taken with Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump does not know this person, does not remember this person and would have no interest in ever knowing her,” the campaign said, adding that Drake’s announcement was “just another example of the Clinton campaign trying to rig the election.”

There's one tiny problem with that load of horseshit statement though. The event where this incident took place was a public event, lots of celebs, meaning lots of photos were taken there. And of course, there are photos of Donny snuggling up to Jessica Drake. And the other thing here is -- there's no fucking way Drumpf will get away with any slimy attempt to smear this woman's physical looks in an attempt to justify why he never would have touched her. This is what Jessica Drake looked like in 2006 - the year this encounter allegedly occurred:

Now tell The Gadfly that a Viagra popping 60 year old Drumpf didn't wanna tap that -- hmmm??

Lastly --- The Gadfly would be criminally remiss if he neglected to also point out the response from the porn star girl's attorney Gloria Allred who pretty much gave Drumpf the finger and triple-dog dared him to sue her client --- for as she quite accurately stated:

Allred responded to Trump’s threat with a threat of her own, saying, “Be careful what you wish for, Mr. Trump. If you sue the accuser, the lawyers who represent these women will have the opportunity to depose you under oath, and ... you may find that the questions include all of the women with whom you have had sexual interactions.”

The Gadfly will take on anyone who wishes to make a wager to which The Gadfly is of the belief that when this election is over, not one of these women will be sued. Not one.

Sunday, October 23, 2016

Donald Trump declared that he was “looking forward” to suing every woman who has accused him of groping and assault during a Saturday speech laying out his plan for the first 100 days of his presidency.

“All of these liars will be sued after the election,” Trump claimed, alleging that the 10 women who have so far accused him of unwanted advances came forward “to hurt my campaign.”

The Trump team billed the speech, held in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in honor of Abraham Lincoln’s address, as an opportunity to lay out his top priorities.

First -- what kind of person cynically uses the backdrop for one of the nation's bloodiest civil war battles and one of the most somber historical events, Lincoln's address, as a photo op to declare that one of the first things they would do "after" being elected President is to use that newly bestowed executive power to seek revenge on real and/or perceived enemies - in this case - a bunch of women who have accused you of sexual improprieties? What other reason would there be for pursuing the legal action after you are in that elected position and have that power at your fingertips?

The Gadfly will tell you what kind of person would do that ---- an ignorant, soulless, arrogant, vulgar talking yam who has about as much business having his stubby fingers groping their way around the levers of world power as Ozzy Osbourne needs to be singing "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" after snorting coke and pounding a bottle of Jack Daniels.

And it goes without saying that Abraham Lincoln's corpse (wherever it may be) is spinning in it's tomb like a turbine over Drumpf's insulting and swinish behavior.

There is some seriously fucked up wiring in Drumpf's ferret-topped mind, which The Gadfly views as a direct and imminent threat to democracy itself. How others are unable to see it, or even worse, see it but are so rage-consumed with their infantile hatred of the dread Billary that they are willing to see this country fail by electing a deranged lunatic to be this nation's leader, is beyond comprehension.

Saturday, October 22, 2016

It had to be said finally -- and the fact it was said by someone with more influence than the semi-inebriated goof who writes this shitty little blog makes all the difference in the world:

The division between Trump’s supporters and the rest of us is not about reconciling our political differences. It is not about opposing policies we hate. (Most of Trump’s policies are actually quite liberal, but that is irrelevant.) There are no real principles on the table here, only Trump’s demagogic stoking of incoherent and even paranoid rage.

Revenge Destroys Friendships:

This is what destroys friendships. Trump’s supporters are now like roaring drunks in a bar fight, people who you might have tried to reason with five drinks earlier but now are just lashing out at everyone in every direction. Pumped up on talk radio conspiracies, overdosing on the venom of Sean Hannity and Judge Jeannine, comatose with irrational fury, they are no longer part of any sensible political debate in America.

This blind madness puts both political and emotional distance between Trump supporters and the rest of us. Most conservatives have already told Trump that we will not sell our character as Americans, and indeed our very souls, just to feel the pleasure of resentful anger for a few months. All we can do is to keep trying to talk our friends out of making that very mistake, or at best to hope that buyer’s remorse will set in.

Still, if anyone who knows me really believes I am now a traitor to my country because of the way I’m going to vote, then I can do without their friendship. If they end their relationship with me because Donald Trump has identified people like me as the source of their problems, then maybe we were not that close in the first place.

In the end, I can only say it again: if I lose a friend only because I am opposed to man who is, in my view, a mortal enemy of everything American, then so be it.

Those are the words of a long time, traditional conservative Tom Nichols. They are the words of a man whose career is closely associated with the U.S. Naval War College and National Security Affairs.

Donald Drumpf and his campaign have forced Tom Nichols to opt to vote for Hillary Clinton. That's how bad and how dangerous of a candidate Drumpf is.

Now don't be aiming to shoot the messenger, The Gadfly, here. The Gadfly is simply sharing the viewpoint of one of the few remaining sane conservatives on the matter of Drumpf vs. The United States of America.

Tom Nichols' own words are quite simply put -- dead spot-on. However, feel free of course to draw your own conclusions. And besides -- The Gadfly did not need any further affirmation that his own analysis of and opposition to Drumpf was misguided. That Drumpf was supremely unfit for the POTUS job was clear to The Gadfly's eyes from the very first day he announced his self-interested, godawful candidacy.

It's always good to know though that even among The Gadflfy's ideological counterparts there are yet a few rational, sensible people remaining in their ranks.

Monday, October 17, 2016

This is what the future survival of representative democracy is up against in this country:

Vicki Sciolaro, Trump supporter in Kansas, joined CNN's Brooke Baldwin today to advocate for her candidate, and boy howdy, did she.

She led right out of the gate by claiming Hillary Clinton is a murderous, baby-killing witch who lives to dismember fetuses before she turned to why she's ready to defend Donald Trump in spite of his sexual abuse admissions on the sex tape released last week.

Brooke Baldwin brought her back around to the question at hand -- whether what Trump said makes a difference.

"He's not running to be the pope.Look at the culture of our country," Sciolari scolded.

"Everybody knew he had strip clubs, but still the millions of people chose him to be the nominee."

"And look at our culture. It's filled with a bar, strip club on every corner."

"God can use anybody," she proclaimed. "He used the harlots and that's okay. It's all about what God can do. God can do this. God can use this man."

"Look at the culture of our country" says this lady who in the same breath justifies her support of Drumpf by claiming God is using Drumpf just as he did the harlots (prostitutes). Egads - the stunning inability of these people to be either self-introspective or think before they talk is outright unnerving at times.

So basically what this freak show contestant is saying is that no - it does not make one iota of difference whether Herr Drumpf has admitted, on tape, that his celebrity status allows him to sexually assault unsuspecting women because God has chosen Drumpf to be evangelical Christianity's special messenger on earth.

Essentially, Drumpf supporters are very cognizant of the fact that they are attempting to elevate a lecherous sociopath, pathological liar, mafia-style businessman and possibly traitor (playing footsie with the Russians) who once asked the question as to why the United States isn't using it's tactical nuclear weapons against a handful of rag-tag, pickup driving whackos in the middle east to the Presidency --- and they just simply do not care --- which to The Gadfly means they do not care one goddamn shit about this nation's future or it's people. They are the collective version of Charlie Sheen and his drug induced "winning" meltdown episode.

And it goes without saying that this woman is the quintessential poster child for why The Gadfly keeps a very healthy and guarded distance from the evangelical right and their terribly ugly and dumb political movement.

The Gadfly isn't even going to try and rebut this lunatic's logic. The effort would be akin to swatting gnats with a spaghetti noodle (and a cooked one at that).

The Gadfly has seen a lot of hand-wringing on the intertoobs from some progressives wondering what in the world will it ever take to get the conservative right to grow up and start behaving like rational, unselfish, and truly compassionate, thinking adults as pertains to their world views. The Gadfly's recommendation to those progressives is to stop wasting valuable time worrying and anticipating them ever reforming to any measurable or redeemable extent.

They truly are irredeemable in the sense that even when knowing full well what a rotten to the core human being Donald Drumpf truly is, they are still willing to foist him upon this nation just because they are mad and because they can, and by God, if they can't have their way, they are going to get really, really, really mad and throw their Gerber baby found on the floor and break all of their toys -- and their brother's and sister's toys too. There is virtually no hope for them.

Better to invest efforts and time toward appealing to and marshaling the existing forces of human decency and the ideals of fairness, moral compassion, common sense thinking and visionary leadership in to a vigorou coalition than to stand around wasting time, effort and resources arguing and debating with a bunch vindictive, intellectually and socially stunted, tantrum throwing toddlers.

In summation - if people like this woman really want to be the proverbial "left behinds" in the plodding, albeit ever forward moving story of human progress, that is solely their choice and The Gadfly is more than happy to stand aside and be a Frolicking witness to their stiff-necked march toward movement and societal irrelevancy.

----TFG

*Addendum: no -- really -- how do you hold a sane debate with people like this?:

Friday, October 7, 2016

Not like it will sway the minds one bit of his dim-wit followers, but The Gadfly has to admit, if you're going to crash and burn a presidential candidacy in one fell swoop of blazing glory -- this is the way to do it:

An audio recording from 2005 features Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump making lewd comments about women during a conversation with then-”Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush. Excerpts of those remarks appear uncensored below.

On the recording ― a video in which Trump can be overheard talking with Bush while on the way to film on the set of a soap opera ― Trump claims he tried to have sex with a married woman and says he can grab women “by the pussy” because he is a celebrity. The Washington Post and NBC News published the recording on Friday.

Grab 'em "by the pussy!" Yeah -- that should make for a pretty fantastic new campaign slogan for team Drumpf.

Honestly - The Gadfly cannot for the life of his self imagine why anyone finds the revelation of this video tape shocking or surprising to any extent. Drumpf has a very long, well documented history of treating women like his own personal sex toys. And the fact that he is on tape stating that his fame affords him the inherent right to force himself upon and sexually assault women should be, in a sane nation, the death knell of his slimy candidacy. But we're talking about modern day right wingers here -- there is nothing sane about those people.

And all of this is all the more hilarious considering that most of the so-called moral values, bible thumping conservatives in this country are supporting this loathsome creep. Mind boggling.

It also goes without saying that there is much the raising of eyebrows in the ol' irony department. If you dear readers recall, Drumpf was wailing early on about all the Mexican rapists invading America to sexually assault our purebred white, Drumpf supporting women folk --- fuck that --- that's Donny's job.

Suffice to say -- anyone still planning to vote for this mentally disturbed jack ass -- if your wife, your daughter, your mother or sister or girlfriend is ever sexually assaulted (and The Gadfly truly wishes that never happens to any of you) ... you truly have no fucking right to complain about it or condemn the assailant considering the fact that you yourself voted for a serial sex deviant to be your country's leader.

Thursday, October 6, 2016

Donald Trump’s longtime tax accountant on Tuesday rejected the idea that the Republican nominee deserves any of the credit for employing complex strategies to lower his tax bill and those of his companies.

“I did all the tax preparation,” Jack Mitnick told “Inside Edition” on Tuesday. “He never saw the product until it was presented to him for signature.”

The interview followed a damning report Saturday by The New York Times, which obtained part of Trump’s 1995 tax returns showing that the businessman declared a loss that year of more than $900 million, a loss that tax experts said Trump could have used to avoid paying income taxes for nearly 20 years.

“I understand the tax laws better than almost anyone,” Trump told a rally crowd in Colorado on Monday, “and that is why I am one that can truly fix them.” He added that “fixing our broken tax code is one of the main reasons I’m running for president.”

Yet according to Mitnick, Trump had no part in preparing his taxes over the years. “I’m the one who did all the work,” Mitnick said.

So essentially, like just about every other brash boast Donald Drumpf has made about his amazing self, he's really not a tax code "genius" despite his lackeys loudly braying it all over the media airwaves since it was revealed what a huge tax dodger he actually is.

All Drumpf did was sign the damn signature form on the pile of tax work that his high powered accountant did for him. It's really no different from every other business venture Drumpf has ever been involved in, in that all he does is slap his name on the products created by others and then hoards all the credit and the glory for his vain and arrogant self.

If, as Drumpf brags, he himself understands and knows the tax laws "better than almost anyone," and as such is the only person in America therefore capable of "fixing" those laws, why on earth would he be wanting to reform laws which have economically benefited his self and his family so handsomely over the years?

And segueing off of that question, how god-awfully stupid can Drumpf's followers truly be? Do they actually believe that someone who has made a lucrative living out of using (abusing) a "broken" tax system, one so broken that it massively favors wealthy elites like Drumpf and his ilk allowing them to enrich themselves at the average working American's expense, intends to dismantle that system and change the tax laws to instead favor the working slobs of this country? Muahahaha! That is delusion on an epic scale if that is the case.

It's just additional evidence to add to the already 10 story high pile of evidence proving what a greasy charlatan Donald Drumpf is. And his brain-dead followers just outright ignore all of that evidence and stand there gazing lovingly upon their savior Drumpf with those puppy-dog eyes and drooling over his magnificence. Go and look up the words "pathetic" and "suckers" in the dictionary -- The Gadfly is convinced that you'll see a picture of a Drumpf rally crowd as the definition for both.

Lastly, the next person that The Gadfly hears mentioning Drumpf's name in the same sentence with the word "genius," The Gadfly swears he is going to vomit on you. Albert Einstein and Alan Turing were geniuses. Drumpf is a flim-flamming, bullshit peddling, con artist carnival barker who would pick his own mother's pocket if given the opportunity. Please take some time out of your busy lives to learn and understand the reality-based meaning of the word.

Saturday, September 17, 2016

For a very long time The Gadfly had thought of Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid as something of a milquetoast politician, one who would rather appease the opposition than put up an admirable fight.

But The Gadfly was wrong. The Gadfly has been watching politics for many years and over the past several years he has seen who the real Harry Reid is. Harry Reid is the Jason Bourne of American politics. Even though he's 76 years old, he has that baby faced, harmless yuppie look just like Matt Damon's on-screen character. But don't be fooled, for like Bourne, if you give Harry Reid just a sliver of an opportunity, he will not hesitate to take advantage of that minuscule opening and quite rightly fuck your shit up.

Just ask Mitt Romney - who Reid laid to waist with his now infamous 2012 attack during the presidential election campaign where he claimed he had been informed by a "credible source" that Romney hadn't paid taxes for 10 years and that was why he was resisting releasing his returns for public viewing. Of course it turned out the statement was mostly a fabrication by Reid, but it was also the dagger in Romney's rib cage which cemented the idea in a lot of fence-sitting voter's minds that Romney was a tax dodging wealthy elitist who was out of touch with working men and women and the middle class.

A couple of years later, some cable tv reporter asked Reid if he had any regrets about his fib or if he wanted to apologize for it, and Reid looked directly in the camera, smiled and said, "I don't regret that at all, Romney didn't win - did he?" 2-fucking-shay.

And now it appears that Herr Drumpf has failed to learn the lesson taught to Mitt Romney as well. A Washington Post reporter yesterday told Drumpf that Reid, responding to the Drumpf team's nasty attacks on Hillary Clinton's health, made an off-hand comment that Drumpf didn't look so "slim and trim" his self. Drumpf, ever the adolescent that he is, couldn't let that go without making a smart ass remark in return and he retorted, "Harry Reid? I think he should go back and start working out again with his rubber work-out pieces."

What Drumpf was referring to was a horrific accident that Reid was involved not long ago while exercising on a workout machine at home. During the workout, an elastic band on the machine snapped in half, struck Reid directly in the face and sent him crashing backward into a set of cabinets. The violent fall left Reid with broken ribs, multiple fractured bones in his face, and he ended up being blinded in his right eye. Reid had to endure several months of recovery.

Now never mind the obvious part of Drumpf being a real fucking rotten asshole of a human being for mocking the real-life injuries of another individual (and no doubt his supporters love him the more for it - because that is who they are too), but Drumpf forgot one thing about Harry Reid. You see, Unlike little Donny, who has lived the life of a pampered, boarding school princeling who was born sliding in to home plate believing that he had hit an inside the park home run, Harry Reid had just the opposite kind of upbringing.

Harry Reid was born in to an impoverished family in tiny Searchlight, Nevada just a couple of years before WW2 broke out. His father was a hard rock miner and his mother a laundress for the local brothels. His family lived in a home with no toilet, no running water and no telephone service. He was an amateur boxer who admits to having been called out to fight in the street from bar rooms on more than one occasion. He married his high school sweetheart in 1959 and is still married to her.

Reid got involved in Nevada state politics in his late 20's. He then went on to become Chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission and he took on the organized crime mobsters who controlled most of the gambling operations in Las Vegas and Nevada at the time. The mob didn't like Harry Reid and they even tried to kill him with a car bomb at one point which would have succeeded if the bomb hadn't malfunctioned when detonated. Reid was constantly receiving death threats from the mob while he fought their criminal grip on the state's gambling enterprise. Eventually, Reid's toughness prevailed and the mob, for all intent and purpose, was pretty much run out of Nevada.

Reid then of course, went on to higher public office, eventually becoming Senate majority leader in an 8-year stint starting in 2007.

So now - knowing all of that about Reid. This is the bad ass sonofabitch of a man that Drumpf decided to fuck with yesterday with his mean girls taunt about Reid's exercise machine injuries. And you know damn well what comes next -- yep -- a bolo, uppercut punch so hard from Reid to little dapper Donny's jutting, elitist chin, that Drumpf's orange ferret weave shot 20 feet straight up off the top of his pointy fat head, implanted roots and all, and landed in a matted heap in a dark, dank corner somewhere.

Here's Reid's response in it's entirety:

“Donald Trump can make fun of the injury that crushed the side of my face and took the sight in my right eye all he wants - I’ve dealt with tougher opponents than him. I may not be able to see out of my right eye, but with my good eye, I can see that Trump is a man who inherited his money and spent his entire life pretending like he earned it.

In Searchlight, we learned a thing or two about hard work that Trump may not have learned at his boarding school.

Trump rips off working people with scams like Trump University. And while the people he ripped off suffer, Trump sits at the posh resort he bought with his daddy’s money, with no understanding of the misery he caused.

Now, Trump’s business interests in foreign countries and his Ponzi-scheme fraud of a ‘charity’ make clear that Trump intends to scam all of America just like he rips off hard-working people.

Trump can insult me all he wants but the American people deserve answers to these questions:

Why did Trump appear to use his charity to enrich himself and bribe elected officials who were investigating his scams?

Why does Trump refuse to cut ties with business interests that would allow him to exploit American foreign policy to enrich himself?

What is Trump hiding in his tax returns?

If Trump wants to be president, he should be properly vetted. If Senator McConnell and Speaker Ryan had the public’s interest at heart, they would lead the Republican Congress to investigate these and other questions with a fraction of the energy and taxpayer money Congressional Republicans used to pursue Huma Abedin’s maternity leave records. But Senator McConnell and Speaker Ryan want to leave town for another two months, just a few weeks after returning from the longest summer recess in more than half a century. And the Republican Congress has shown nothing but blind obedience to Trump, going so far as to hold a Supreme Court seat open for six months in the hopes that Trump can fill it.

If the Republican Congress refuses to do its job, the media has an even greater responsibility to get answers to these questions.

Now obviously that is going to leave one helluva thick, rubber skid mark on Drumpf's pasty-white, greasy backside, but that be told, the real story here is how the right wing in this country is so ass-backward fucked up in their mindset and views that they would much prefer to support a spoiled-rotten, immature 70 year old rich boy who has never had to work for anything in his worthless, parasitic life, and instead project their confused hate on a guy like Reid who is the quintessential poster child of the American kid who literally fought and clawed his way out of abject poverty to the pinnacle of success -- the true American hero story.

But Drumpf, for what ever god-forsaken rationalization, impresses the conservative right wingers to no end --- and as such just the mere thought of them getting their way by seeing the thin-skinned, venomous, tiny fingered, Cheeto-faced, ferret wearing shitgibbon actually ascend to power scares the living shit out of The Gadfly, and it ought to as well for anyone else who actually gives a flying fuck about the future of this country and representative democracy as we know it.

In closing, The Gadfly lovingly dedicates the following song to little Dappper Donny asshole and his pathetic brigade of asshole munchkin supporters: